Judas Priest. How did September slip away so fast? Was it that week in Vegas? Confusion caused by allergy meds? Could it have been downsized along with everything else?
Whatever. Tomorrow it will be October, and I’m betting we get our first snow before Halloween. The furnace just clicked on at midday and the thermostat is set at 67 degrees. Sheesh. Close the doors, shut the windows, batten down the hatches.
It sure is pretty out there, though. Fall will always be my favorite time of year, even though it means hunting up my comfy samue pants for around the house, and arm/knee warmers for outside of it.
I signed on for a couple extra shifts in the VeloBarrel during the Vuelta and (Not) The Tour of Colorado, and also have been chiming in mornings at Charles Pelkey’s newest venture, LiveUpdateGuy.com, so I’ve been scurrying about like a roach on a griddle the past couple of days.
Being a professional slacker who hasn’t had a full-time job since the fall of 1991 it always comes as a shock to my system whenever I actually have to work anything close to a full week. How the hell did I do it all those years? How the hell does anyone do it?
Every aspect of the literary and artistic life suffers as a consequence. Grocery trips become hectic affairs instead of leisurely noshing expeditions, and mealtime the equivalent of filling the tank at a Conoco. The quality and quantity of training declines. The liquor tab takes on Pentagonesque dimensions.
But at least no one has cut me, and I’m not wearing a cone. There’s an upside to everything.
The big hill still packs a chill, no matter what the calendar says.
We have a bad case of the brain cramp going on around here today. I had to pick up Herself at the Bibleburg Interdimensional Airport at 10 p.m. last night, we didn’t hit the rack until about midnight, and neither of us slept for shit, thanks to seasonal allergies that have triggered massive tsunamis in our respective snotlockers. So this morning we both had jet lag and I didn’t even get to go anywhere.
I tried half-heartedly to pay attention to the news, which has become even more Pythonesque lately (“And now it’s time for the Medicare card in your wallet to explode.”). But I lost interest in bad imitations of good comedy and decided to ride the bike instead, shoot a little video of some of my favorite trails in Palmer Park.
Alas, that went sideways as well — the video, not the riding — and by the time I realized that my cinematography was a few Cecils short of a DeMille I’d run down the batteries in my Flip Video, so there was no take two without plugging the bugger into the iMac back at the ranch.
So I stuffed the Flip into a jersey pocket, bagged a few more trails sans video, then headed for home, where the beer is. Was. And I feel much better now, thanks. Tomorrow is another day.
No ride for Your Humble Narrator today. See Tour of Flanders. Damn’ fine race. I was able to watch the last 40km live via streaming video courtesy of Eurosport, with almost-English-language commentary from Sean Kelly, and it was a nail-biter right to the finish.
When I wasn’t posting words or pictures I was wrestling with our backyard fence, which is somewhat the worse for wear after one too many windy springs. A couple uprights have gone rotten underground and the bugger flaps like Glenn Beck’s blubbery lips when the wind is from the right quarter, and last night it was a howler. Beat the living snot out of downtown and kept us awake most of the night. It was so bad that a neighbor wondered whether a plane was plummeting to earth somewhere nearby.
Anyway, the fence is a wreck, I hate fence work, and the dude we usually hire to do things I hate has hurt his back and thus is unavailable to make my cushy life even easier. So today I braced the sonofabitch with a couple of 2x3s and then guy-wired it down, using some 14-gauge looped around the uprights and thence to tent pegs pounded into the turf. That ought to keep it in the neighborhood for as long as it takes for our guy to heal up.
Meanwhile, after record-breaking heat yesterday it’s presently snowing sideways from about six different directions at once, yet things remain on fire. Springtime in the Rockies.
It's a little brisk yet this morning and this guy is looking pretty puffy.
Thanks, all, for the birthday wishes. I was buried in deadlines and only now have I been able to rear my ugly head.
Looks like all the usual skullduggery has continued unabated in my absence. NBC News avoids reporting that its owner, General Electric Co., earned $14.2 billion in profits last year but paid no federal income tax (having just signed off on my returns, I can assure you that Mad Dog Media paid through its cold, wet nose).
Steve Benen makes a “Star Wars” reference (“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”) in noting Joe Klein’s apprehension at the “vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers” queuing up to race for the GOP presidential nomination.
And Fox News VP Bill Sammon is full of shit to the sideburns.
Those are the highlights so far this morning. No doubt there will be others. But they’ll have to wait until after I enjoy a nice, long, skull-flushing bike ride.
Mad Blog Media 